


beds we've made

by mazabm



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Lack of Communication, M/M, Not quite at forgiveness, Pining, Post-Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-09 19:39:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19893235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mazabm/pseuds/mazabm
Summary: Juno made his bed, now he has to lie in it.  He knew that coming into this, didn't expect it to hurt so much.Also: Juno receives a gift, everyone involved is extremely conflicted.





	beds we've made

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Binge the entire Junoverse in less than 72 hours  
> 2\. Listen to Be by Hozier multiple times  
> 3\. Think about Peter sitting up inside a hotel on Mars alone, with the one person he gave everything gone  
> 4\. Write  
> 5\. ????

It’s Buddy who asks, her sharp gaze shifting back and forth between them as if they’re an interesting little puzzle she wants to solve to pass the time.

“So, what’s the story between you two?” She asks. Juno wonders if he’s been obvious with his eye following Nur- Cross, Flavian Cross, around. The man had murmured the name to him as they shook hands, acting like a stranger and a person with more past than he wanted. 

“Detective Steel tried to catch me, he failed.” It’s a short, concise story that leaves out a Martian tomb, a train, almost dying and a hotel where Juno left him. It leaves out everything, but it’s said as Cross eyes him over his drink, daring Juno to say he’s wrong. 

“Bullshit, that’s not all that happened,” Buddy says, she’s smiling but her eyes grow sharper and Juno prays that even Buddy Aurinko knows to just let this one go. 

“That’s all that matters,” Cross says. That hurts, makes Juno’s body ache with something he doesn’t want to name. 

The thing is, Juno, deserves this, he deserves the icy looks when their eyes connect. Juno deserves to watch the other man tucked besides Rita on the couch, watching her streams pretending he isn’t across the room. He deserves to see all these cultivated relationships Cross has made in the ship and know he doesn’t get that, not with the old Peter and not with Flavian Cross now. He messed up, badly, but he’s also learned Peter Nureyev doesn’t owe him anything, not a chance to hear his apology or even a kind look, and Juno will have to be okay with that.

Rita doesn’t understand, not really. She saw the beginning, middle, and aftermath with Falco, and Diamond, but all she saw after the Martian tomb was a Juno without an eye, and a broken heart, and he wouldn’t let her help him then. He won’t let her help him now either, not with this, this is his mistake, the one he must suffer through. 

It would be fine if Cross just yelled at him, fought him, refused to even work with him but he doesn’t do any of that. He’s almost downright nice and Juno can’t stand it. It makes him tense, edgy, ready to try to pry a fight out of Cross, if Cross won’t give him one. Buddy sees that, sends him into situations that require him to fight. He can’t shoot straight, he works on his fists. Jet spars with him for hours, quiet as Juno pushes himself until his eye drips with exhaustion and the man tells him that’s enough and sends him away. Buddy teaches him all the classic con tricks, refines what he learned growing up in the Oldtown that’s no more. He thinks in a better world, she would remind of him of his mother, but as it is, she reminds him of the teacher that pushed him out of Oldtown straight to the HCPD. He thinks that glow in her eyes means she believes in him, even as they travel further and further away from Mars. He thinks, in time, he could love it here too. 

“I believe this is yours, Detective,” Cross says to him, one night. Juno stands in the kitchen, clutching a mug, staring through the port’s windows at the stars (they are far from Mars, he’s seen nothing like it). They are alone, for the first time in weeks. In Cross’s hand is a small, circular, eye, the same shade as Juno’s. 

He takes a step back, expecting THEIA to talk in his head again just by looking at it, his hands shake and the hot drink inside his mug sloshes over him. He hisses. 

“Juno,” and for a second, Cross sounds worried, sounds like Peter, but when Juno looks back at him, there’s the stone face again of Cross, confusion only on his face.

“Tried the whole eye thing already, didn’t really work out.” He says, putting the drink down, stepping away. Even dead, the old man sits inside his brain and the eye is just begging for some bad memories to come up. 

“Buddy told me all about...” Cross trails off, seemingly unsure of what to say and Juno sure his mouth gapes a little because Peter Nureyev always knows what to say. “Look, I found it on Venus, it’s wireless, reacts off your nerve endings, it’s not an A.I.” Found on Venus probably means stolen. This is the longest conversation they’ve had since Juno joined the crew. “You don’t have to take it, I just thought,” 

Juno is going to kiss him, he’s not, he wants to, he wants to so bad, wants to pull Peter, Cross, whoever he is, into his arms and kiss him, but he doesn’t. 

“Thanks.” He says, instead. His hand going over Cross’s hand holding the little eye. The warmth from his hand going down to Peter’s. “I don’t even know if I can use it,” Without triggering some mega trauma. This is Juno trying to be honest. “But I’ll try.”

“It’s why I got it.” _For you_ goes unsaid and Juno can’t bring himself to keep looking in those bright, beautiful eyes, so he looks down. They’re still holding hands, a little eye pressed between them. “Anyway,” Cross steps back, leaving Juno holding the eye and any vulnerability one of them may have had is gone. 

“Peter,” Juno doesn’t know what he will say, he’s planned the exact words he would say in an apology. He dreamt it so many times he used to drink himself to slumber just to feel Peter’s lips on his again, but holding an eye Peter got for him, even when he thought he might never see Juno again, is making his heartbeat out his chest. He does nothing though, doesn’t have the chance to. 

“Don’t.” Peter, Cross says. Holding his hands out as if to protect himself from Juno, tensed like a caged animal. “Don’t. Not tonight, not now.” 

“Right,” Juno says. He doesn’t have the right. Peter Nureyev gave Juno Steel everything he had, every truth, memories in his brain and Juno Steel threw it away. So Juno Steel has to stand and watch Peter, Flavian Cross walk away, while holding a gift he does not deserve and he cries.

What else can he do?

**Author's Note:**

> def team Angry peter rights! but I also want them to reunite, I just want Juno to wait till Peter is ready for him too.  
> 
> 
> [Bloodbendingbabe](https://bloodbendingbabe.tumblr.com/)
> 
> on tumblr  
> ob unbeta(d)


End file.
